Life Is Not a Stage Florence Henderson (13 ebook reader .txt) 📖

no videotape in television’s infancy and no retakes, although some programs were recorded in kinescope for rebroadcast in earlier time zones (by literally pointing a film camera at a TV monitor). Everything was live, which some performers found absolutely terrifying. But it did not bother me. Instead, I learned quickly through necessity that you had to be prepared when you went on television, not just with stories to tell but also to expect the unexpected. It helped that I had that early-acquired sense of what it took to make people laugh. You also had to be flexible and roll with the punches because the host might go off on a tangent and other things might not come off as planned. Once I was on a radio show hosted by Barry Gray broadcast live on WMCA from a restaurant. If memory serves me right, it must have been my birthday, because they brought out a birthday cake to the table on the raised platform where we did the interview. But the cake never made it to me. It got diverted at the last second onto the nicely dressed and very stunned businessman seated at the table below. Too bad it wasn’t captured on television, but I’m sure the way I was laughing must have left little to the imagination for those listening at home. It was uncanny how in the blink of an eye the cake had jumped off the table and deposited itself on his shoulders, plastering his hair and face.

When not at the theater or doing interviews, I was studying. I had met a wonderful voice teacher named Dolf Swing and took lessons with him. Twice a week, I had a three-hour acting class with Mary Tarcai (Charlotte Rae was in my class). I was also going out on auditions, including for the part of the leading lady in Wish You Were Here when the actress was suddenly fired. I didn’t get that part because they told me I didn’t look Jewish enough. A beautiful dark-haired actress named Patricia Marand got it. Jack Cassidy remained the leading man.

When you went out on an audition, the decision-makers sat in the shadows in the seats below.

“Can you come back in the afternoon and sing for my partner?” asked one of the strangers in the audience after I finished one tryout.

“Who’s your partner?” I asked.

“Oscar Hammerstein,” the man replied. That probably meant that the man I was speaking to was Richard Rodgers. So it was. The Ouija board back at the Three Arts wasn’t lying. I found out I was up for the lead as the farm girl Laurey in the last national touring company of the musical Oklahoma! I was the right age and had the right accent—again, the one I had just gotten rid of!—so they must have sensed how easily Laurey came to me. They offered me the role that afternoon. I had been in Wish You Were Here for two months by this time.

Here I was, suddenly elevated from the chorus to the chance to play a leading role in a major production for my idols, Rodgers and Hammerstein, a dream that came true so quickly it was almost ridiculous. But I had some serious doubts about taking the job. My goal was Broadway, to be on the stage in New York. I thought that if I went out on the road I would be out of sight, out of mind, out of the mix, and unavailable if any other big roles came up. Nor would I be able to continue with my studies and keep learning and growing. I was still very much a teenager, so this display of impatience and chutzpah could be chalked up to that. I was also not worried that if I said no to this part I wouldn’t get another big shot. But it was a big decision, and to hedge my bets I still went out on other auditions, one of which was for Guys and Dolls.

The casting director for the musical, Ira Bernstein, knew that I had already been offered the role in Oklahoma! He strongly recommended that I take the job and have the experience of playing a leading role on the road. “You can really learn your craft.” My voice teacher Dolf concurred, emphasizing that doing eight shows a week on tour would be an invaluable education. So I took the job.

In the interim weeks before rehearsals for Oklahoma! began, I still appeared in Wish You Were Here. I walked each afternoon the twenty blocks from my apartment on the East Side to the theater on the West Side with blisters on my heels. The stage door to our theater was right next door to the one for Guys and Dolls. I saw Ira standing outside that door, and I went over to thank him for his advice and told him that I had made my decision. “Maybe we could discuss it over dinner,” he suggested. He was a very charming and handsome man, but we just kept it on a platonic level. We dated a few times, but that came to a temporary stop out of necessity when I went out on the road.

We rehearsed in New York for three weeks before the opening night in New Haven, Connecticut. Jerry White, the director, was tough and demanding, but it was something I really liked and never found intimidating. The thought of going from the chorus in one play to the lead in the next, one might assume, would be stressful. The leads in the one high school operetta and the community theater piece I did before leaving for New York were not comparable. But my ignorance proved a great blessing. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Since playing Laurey was like second nature to me, I hardly fretted.

However, that stress-free experience was short-lived. I didn’t realize all the reality checks that would quickly be coming my way. It was on the last days